Changes at Henderson State
Henderson State University in Arkadelphia has a special place in my heart. I spent my first two years of college there, and recall them as two of the very best years of my life. Thus it was with a heavy heart that I read the recent news accounts of the financial crisis facing Henderson and the subsequent resignation of the university president.
No educational institution in Arkansas has gone through more change than Henderson. It was established as a Methodist institution, but the state assumed control of the school after 39 years. It started out as little more than a high school, then it became a leading teaching-training college, and in recent times Henderson has evolved into a liberal arts university.
It is not by accident that Arkadelphia is the home to two colleges, as this small town on the banks of the Ouachita River has a long and honorable history as a center of learning. One settler opened a private academy in 1820, only a year after Arkansas became a territory. With Methodist support, the short-lived Arkansas Female College welcomed its first students in 1859, the same year the State Institute for the Blind opened its doors in Arkadelphia. Ouachita Baptist College was established with 160 students in 1886.
Henderson came into existence in 1890, when a large number of Arkadelphia Methodists successfully petitioned the denomination’s Little Rock Conference to create a local co-educational college. The town was primed to create a college since it had vied unsuccessfully the year before to become the home of Hendrix College, a Methodist school, when it was relocated from Altus, Ark.
As the late John Gladden Hall, author of a fine history of Henderson State, has written, the creation of a
Baptist college “resulted in the determination of the local Methodists to establish a college in the town …”
With pledges of $30,000, the newly established Arkadelphia Methodist College board purchased a nine-acre plot on the northern edge of town close to Ouachita Baptist College. Little Rock architect Thomas Harding was hired to design the main building.
Classes began in the fall of 1890 with 110 students. Initially classes were held in a variety of buildings and students boarded with families. With the guidance of a strong board of trustees, the college made gradual progress, though it faced many financial challenges. At one time the college was “sold” to its president in order to escape crushing debt and in order to “save the school to Methodism.”
In 1904, the trustees changed the name of the school to Henderson College in recognition of its leading trustee and benefactor, Charles C. Henderson. At the request of Henderson, in 1911 the name of the institution was changed to Henderson-Brown College.
Brown, who was Henderson’s business partner and a new member of the board, had helped rescue the college from debt.
Though Henderson never had a large enrollment, it did offer a full range of classes, including multiple foreign languages. The Star yearbook began publication in 1905, and a campus newspaper, The Oracle, began in 1908.
Though having only about 200 students, the college managed to field multiple athletic teams. In 1907 Henderson played Ouachita Baptist University in the first Battle of the Ravine. The mascot evolved over time from the Red Jackets to the Reds and finally to the Reddies.
By 1928 the college was in trouble again as hard economic times brought a drop in enrollment to a mere 153 students. When the Little Rock Conference voted that year to combine Henderson-Brown with Hendrix College, the faculty, students, and trustees petitioned the state to assume control of the college. Legislation was introduced in the next session of the General Assembly, and on Feb. 25, 1929, Act 46 was signed by the governor. The school’s name was changed to Henderson State Teachers College.
The stability afforded by state support allowed Henderson to expand. New Deal funding enabled the construction of six major buildings, and accreditation was attained in 1934. Graduate classes began in 1951.
In 1967 the Legislature recognized the changing mission of the college and renamed it Henderson State College. Eight years later the Legislature changed the name for what was thought then was the final time, replacing the word College with University.
Perhaps the most outstanding academic program at Henderson throughout its history was that offered by the department of music. Frederick Harwood, a classically trained violinist, became head of the Henderson conservatory of music in 1913, and for the next 33 years Harwood and his wife Dora Sellard, also a violinist, provided firstrate music education. During his early years at Henderson Harwood had a salary higher than that of the college president since he received 50 percent of the fees paid by piano students.
Another outstanding music educator at Henderson was Miss Mae Whipple, a graduate of Guinn School of Music as well as Columbia University, who began teaching piano in 1929 and helped educate two generations of students, many of whom would become music teachers.
Described by one of her colleagues as “a charming lady of perpetual youth,” Miss Whipple was an commanding presence on campus for 45 years.
In addition to producing legions of much-needed teachers, Henderson has educated many of the state’s leaders in politics, business, and the professions. Famed historian C. Vann Woodward attended Henderson-Brown. John R. Steelman, President Truman’s chief of staff, was a 1922 graduate of Henderson. The late Gov. Sidney S. McMath and former U.S. Senator David Pryor both attended. Many of the state’s finest athletes and coaches have been Henderson Reddies. Actor Billy Bob Thornton studied a full year there before dropping out.
The most significant graduates of Henderson State were the generations of Arkansas teachers who labored with little recompense to bring education and enlightenment to rural farm boys like me.
Whatever the future might hold for Henderson State, I am hopeful that the name can be retained, along with the venerable slogan “The school with a heart.”